My Brother, My Self

You may recognize identical twins Max and Charlie Carver from ''Desperate Housewives,'' but you'll gain a whole new appreciation for their playful brand of humor on the otherwise dark ''The Leftovers;'' we spoke with the 25-year-olds about the HBO series and their twinspirations

Desperate Housewives was your breakout in 2008. Did you know at that point that acting would be your career?Charlie Carver It changed where we saw our futures going, but we were still students. We still both lived off campus by our university!

Max Carver I had bedbugs! I was still the pledge president of my fraternity.

Charlie We were so lucky with Desperate Housewives. Working with Felicity Huffman! She’s so humble and has such a history in this business. To have her as kind of a role model or a mother — both in the story, but also on set, kind of…

Max She shaped us up.

Which was the crazier filming experience: Desperate Housewives or Teen Wolf?Max The thing you have to remember about Teen Wolf is that one moment you’re running across campus, like, ripping off your claws — and then someone’s just getting wolf makeup put on nearby. Like, ”Oh, hey, how’re you doin’?” to somebody in blue face paint.

Charlie [Our characters] were such little goobers on Housewives. We were dumb! [Laughs] And so when Teen Wolf came along, it was like, ”Really? You want us to be action heroes? Yeah, I’ll do my own stunts!”

What drew you to The Leftovers?Charlie I’d read the book right when it came out and fell in love with it. I completely forgot that there were twins in it until I found out there was a pilot for HBO. And the first audition we went in, we’d been wrapping the finale of Teen Wolf, which was all-night shoots.

Max So we went in early in the morning. Yeah, I blew that one. Charlie looked at me after that and was like, ”Max! You blew that for me!” But then they brought us back.

Tell me about auditioning for roles as twins. Is there a separate system?Charlie Yeah, there’s a community.

Max There’s just five sets of twins and we just talk to each other every day. [Laughs] Nah, it’s the same thing.

Charlie When we go in for casting as twins, we want to show that we can do either part. What’s so great about the jobs that we’ve had is that from the beginning, but especially as the shows continue, they really start to differentiate us. Because we really are so different.